Broken Snipers, Rediculously Bad Autobalance, and other things that NEED to be fixed!

So like most of us I have been playing these types of games for a long long time, and ghost recon/rainbow six (original series) are by far near the top of the shooters list. Needless to say I don't want to come off like a disrespectful jerk, but in all honesty these things need to be fixed ASAP!

1. Close combat is broken as well as hitboxes. Hit detection is simply off in some parts, and whether it is lag or what not, when you shoot a dude and you hear the gun go off, the shot was fired, the timing was right, but he didn't get hit and you're dead. Makes it very frustrating when you know the gun went off, or when you CLEARLY hit a guy and nothing happens. When you have one guy one one side of a wall, rock, or whichever, and you pop up because you have the radar tracking him. 9 times out of 10 the scope or spot that you pop up is actually 2-3 feet lower then the center of the screen, or where you expect the actual scope to pop up. Also, the fact that no-scoping is difficult, and the fact that the way the weapons handle makes close quarters combat (particularly for the recon) a drastically poor experience. All anyone on the opposing team has to do in order to stop a sniper is get up close. Certain "tall" surfaces don't allow the sniper to take the shot, and he/she will often die as a result of being locked on a wall or locked into a stance. This is a very drastically bad influence on close quarter combat.

2. Map design is very poor, lazy, and cluttered. The maps simply don't make sense, they are all one color, not layered or interesting. Most of which would be fine, but when spotting guys or trying to describe areas of interest, it is very difficult unless something specifically stands out. It would be best to take a design queue from CS:S or more specifically day of defeat and create maps like avalance, anzio, etc. where snipers have spots to hide and shoot, other players have cover to use while capturing flags, and in all the map itself is balanced. The majority of these maps are all made for close quarters combat and it appears or feels like certain things have just been added to allow snipers a spot to shoot from. Again, if you get close, the recon class is useless, and there is no way to actually do anything worthwhile when 25% of the team or more then likely 75% of the team is respawning and running somewhere.

3. 4 vs. 4 is unacceptable for these maps. Quite clearly these maps are large. Essentially you spend the majority of the map traveling rather then actually enjoying the experience. Spawning on a flag or squadmate would help this, but the best thing to do and the best way to "balance" these maps and get some reliable user data based on death spots and so forth is to actually add more combatants and people to cover the zones that need be.

4. Voice chat is low, and it is impossible to hear the majority of players. It would also be extremely beneficial to have an indicator of whom is talking as well as what team they are on. It is unclear who, what, where, and so forth when in the middle of a match what is going on. This kills any sort of teamwork and co-operation, again, killing the experience. I went into the game today, had to lower the music to about half, will see if that "fixes" the issue. Maybe a surround 5.1 issue as well (My rear channels are broken).

5. Add more alleyways, corridors, and mainly for good map design is it a best practice to have 3-4 ways into and out of an area. It also, specifically for capture games, allows the defenders and offenders to rush an area quickly and effectively with great teamwork.

6. Spawn protection. Quite simply if you don't have a simple way for users to spawn, and get out of their spawn area when the opponents have taken then down to that area of the map and are on the last flag, then it makes it a simple and ridiculous strategy to overwhelm opponents easily again and again. As I said before, having multiple entries, at least 3-4 ways, would be best.

7. Adjust, revise, fine-tune, and all around fix the mechanics of cover. Quite honestly it needs some polish. The main issue is multiple people taking the 2 or 3 good areas and people coming along and getting in the way. Walking through the other player is NEVER a good idea and it ruins the feel of the game. It makes it seem as if there is a certain weight missing. My suggestion would be to stop the players from having the ability to clip through one another. It stops the issue of blocking or pushing through someones sights on cover, and it allows for a more realistic experience. Something Ghost Recon should be striving for.

8. More flags, zones, or things to capture. Once the P.S. is read this will make a lot more sense, but the main thing to keep in mind that a good number for capture points is 5 or more. Games like DODS and BF have used this type of gameplay for some time, but the best games are when teams are evenly matched and there is a lot of back and forth between capture points and making a few of them extremely exposed and difficult to capture on offense. I have seen the majority of maps with 3 zones, two of which are active, then a third becomes active. With 4 players, and eventually with 8 vs 8 or better yet 16 vs. 16, it is extremely easy to see how overwhelming it can become when one team goes one way and the other goes another, 3 minutes later the match is over.

9. Speed up the cap times. Simply put, the easier it is to cap a zone, it makes it that much easier to stop the defenders, force a quick win, and all around make the game much more exciting. Things can turn on a time if it was 1-7 seconds to capture a flag, but right now it takes around a minute. It would be a good idea to have one or two main flags with player requirements. Meaning you need at least 2-3 people to capture a point.

10. After playing yesterday let's just say I was more then pissed. Team was bad, everything was dumb, and I had a team with 7 other snipers and not one of them used their scans or even knew how to shoot at the enemy. It would be rediculous to have a game with a scan radar type power and NOT have the team use it. I would suggest completely removing the kill cams. It takes out the "I just died, here is the dude that killed me" syndrome, gives snipers a meaningful usage of cover and great hiding spots, and just about FORCES the teams to use their abilities to take out strong opponents. Doing that helps with teamwork, and that will eventually force an all around better experience. It may seem like a small thing, but the TF2 killcam update and clipping through players just about destroyed the DOD:S community. That playerbase has been waiting for a game like it ever since.

P.S. After playing for a few days, this game felt VERY much like day of defeat source to me. Except for the map design. which is VASTLY superior to this game, it is similar in many aspects. If the combat and weight of the weapons was a bit heavier, if there was a bit more recoil, and use of secondary weapons, it would be a very solid experience. I am not suggesting one to copy DOD:S, but to simply take a look at how that game works, how it feels, and plays, (PRIOR TO THE TF2 PATCH) and particularly with level design, make it a bit more interesting and compelling of an experience. I like the use of some of the powers, the recon's ability to spot people in a particular cone makes it quite interesting and useful, the heatvision is a nice crippling effect, the shield rush is stupid and overpowered, but the shield itself is interesting by forcing a particular shot, and I haven't seen any others powers yet. The cloak seems to be a bit broken, just doesn't work as intended.

I played again today, recorded another long video, will post ASAP. Essentially this game is dramatically broken and needs to be fixed. Either add some sort of autobalance, team balance, based on score, or add some way to select a server. Matchmaking adds so many recon to one team, or not enough... It needs to be class based, it needs to allow teams to auto-balance mid match (when one round is over) and it needs to, for the love of everyone's sanity, work on making it a teamwork based game.

I can go into a long diatribe about how to fix issues, like I said, read the above post, and I will post a bit more below. First, here is the video.

As you can see, almost every match there were some pretty horrid teams, some had too many snipers, others had too many assault, etc. It would be best to match players up based on class as well as skill, not just level. Also, specifically for Recon, the CQC is dramatically broken. Start each class with a pistol, grenade, and if a player wants to buy extra grenades, allow them to carry more then 2. For instance, start each player with 1 nade, and 1 pistol magazine, anything other then that is a "bring it yourself" type setup.

Aiming with the sniper has some severe issues. Sometimes you can clearly see a guy, hit him, and it does nothing. It is more then likely some sort of object issue, but it happens a lot and this needs to be fixed. The other issue with the sniper is the aiming mechanic from the 3rd person viewpoint. It would be best if the top 2/3 of the screen was used to capture the center of that point being the center of the zoomed in perspective. More often then not, I aim at someone and scope in, end up looking at my feet somehow. It is like some sort of reverse recoil when zooming it. It makes it rediculous when you need to quickly hit a guy, and has made me miss on several occasions, nearly 100 shots in the least week. Finally, the 4x scope needs to be an acog, not whatever it is now. When I switched to the 6x scope, lines were dramatically less bold and actually allowed the players to see the horizon of the scope, making it easier when a guy jumps up slightly left/right from the aim point. Needless to say the default scope layout is fine, but the lines need to be at least 1/4 of the thickness. Again, see dod:s german k98 scope for a good idea of thickness.

Flags need to be captured much quicker, in 3-5 seconds, at most 7. If you want player requirements on a flag, fine, but right now it is severely lopsided when it comes to the flags. Essentially, whichever team has better cover spots in the flag zones, wins. If the cover is slightly behind the zone, no one ever pushes up the few inches to block of capture a flag.

There are a ton of issues, the more I play this game the more apparent they are, but this game can easily be "fixed" if someone actually gives a crap about it.

Have either of you played dod:s... it takes 1 second for some flags, 5 for the main, and 7 for the ones with 2-3 player requirements. It works EXTREMELY well. The main point here is to increase the number of flags to a minimum of 5, you capture them all to win, or the match keeps going until time runs out (not 10-15 minutes, but 35-60 minutes was how it worked in dod:s)

Go watch some gameplay footage of it, I linked to a good video in the first post I did. It isn't bad at all and it will make people stop being lazy and sitting while the flag is capped to get a kill. It forces you to rush and to play well, and penalizes those whom sit and wait.

Video is up now, it will be done processing in around an hour or so. It is 1:20 minutes long.

Another Idea I had while flailing around to melee a sniper 3 inches away and missing 9 times... Add a knife, or something, so you know where the melee is and it can actually be a one hit silent kill.

It would also be cool to see some more things from GR:FS incorporated, such as the ARrone spy bot that spots players or shoots (NOT dependand on a kill streak, but perhaps map based and only available in specific locales, like to clear a particularly annoying building).

In terms of balance, the translucent shield power needs to have health, something where 3-4 high end sniper shots will take the guy down (3 for the shield, 1 for him) Also, lessen the time so that you don't simply use that to cap a flag. Nice idea, but it is already completely overused and annoying.

Lastly, object detection specifically for things like edges of balconies and railing when prone and sniping, make it almost impossible to do so without being detected. Trying to get on the edge of the girder, but not have the scope and rifle flailing around can be difficult. And sometimes, shooting through girders on some maps leads to poor shot detection, perhaps the object is in the way when it shouldn't be? Watch the video, I hit a guy 3-4 times today and he didn't get one ounce of health down, Hit a guy on the other side of the walkway, same distance sticking out, shooting through a pipe and metal box, and he died in one shot. It's really shotty when it comes to hid detection in places.

You don't seem to get it though...This is not DOD:S, this is ghost recon online. It's it's own thing, let it be that way, stop trying to make it like another game. You want NEW, fresh idea's that make this game stand out among the crowd, not blend in. Oh and at 1:35, what were you thinking? You are a sniper, stop going to the front lines -_-. Oh and you suck at aiming dude Lol.

all day today I was put on sniper teams being the lone assault, everyone camps in back while I push up alone doesn't really make for a interesting or fun game, there def needs to be a limit on the number of classes per team. The auto balance is really bad atm teams are often stacked. A server browser would be nice as well.

The flag cap times are nice it makes the rounds last a little longer you shouldn't be taking the flag alone the more people the faster it should cap, so if your team swamps a cap zone it should fall pretty fast compared to you sneaking in taking it alone.

You don't seem to get it though...This is not DOD:S, this is ghost recon online. It's it's own thing, let it be that way, stop trying to make it like another game. You want NEW, fresh idea's that make this game stand out among the crowd, not blend in. Oh and at 1:35, what were you thinking? You are a sniper, stop going to the front lines -_-. Oh and you suck at aiming dude Lol.

Well you see... The way teamworks is, you can push on a point, let the rest of your team know "cap this" and they should push up. As far as aiming, the next day I was 21-3 first match, 20-6, 35-8, etc. It has a lot to do with being able to make shots and getting used to the weapons, scopes, and feel of the rifle. Yes, I agree, I did horrible that day, but it happens, every day isn't a great one and sometimes you do have horrible days.

On the point of this not being DOD:S... All I am saying it that it is a class based, tactical/strategic game that is based around capturing and holding points. That is the only relation. DOD:S does a ton of things extremely well and has been around for over 10 years. The powers adds a nice twist to the flag type of games, but the point is, the devs would do well to improve things and try some of the things that DOD:S does in order to see how they change the game around. Needless to say, all of you who are vehemently opposed to even giving it a shot are just narrowminded. You simply want a bf3/cod type experience, or you want to pretend that this game is particularly original and something which hasn't been around for 10+ years. Needless to say, I've been around for quite some time playing these games, and I know the new mentality, the old mentality, and what makes for a better game.

If I got stuck playing one round for 60 minutes I'd uninstall immediately following that mission.

You do realize that if the team does well, then things go back and forth, and it can last an eternity, right? I had a GRO round yesterday last 40 minutes because we kept going back and forth so much. Every team was on their game and practically no one could get any ground. And yes... I said ROUND not match....

It was probably one of the best experiences each player has had during the beta. We weren't at eachothers throats, we knew what we all were doing, and we knew what to do in order to keep eachother pushed back. When you have matches like that, you learn the ins and outs of the game, you learn the intricacies of the maps, and you learn just what it takes to make that shot on 3 snipers on the balcony 100 yards away within 2 seconds. It isn't something you get from a generic cod/bf3 game, and as I said, it is something the competitive pc gaming scene NEEDS to have. If you want 5-10 minute matches, then go play cs, go play cod, go play bf, quite honestly there is a ton of crap to go around, even free to play stuff, all of which you can play for a few minutes at a time. As for me, I enjoy skill, strategy, teamwork, and having the ability to go back and forth, have things change on a dime if you know what you are doing, and have the ability for any player to win the match within a few seconds. Meaning, if one person on the def screws up, then fine, it's over, but if everyone knows what to do, then it can be going for a long time.